Data Nuggets: Bringing Real Data into the Classroom to Unearth Students' Quantitative & Inquiry Skills

Current educational reform calls for increased integration between science and mathematics to overcome the shortcomings in students' quantitative skills. Data Nuggets (free online resource, http://datanuggets.org) are worksheets that bring data into the classroom, repeatedly guiding students through the scientific method and making claims based on quantitative evidence. Created around recent and ongoing research, Data Nuggets provide background to a scientist and their study system, along with a real data set from their research. We demonstrate the use of Data Nuggets in the classroom and share a lesson that challenges students to answer a scientific question, use a data set to support their claim, and guides them through the construction of graphs to facilitate data interpretation. Data Nuggets can be used across K—16 grades and multiple times throughout the school year as students build their quantitative skills.